It is well known that in guitars, particularly electric guitars which may have solid or hollow bodies, that the quality of the tone produced by the low frequency strings is superior to that produced by the high frequency strings. In conventional electric guitars low frequency strings are generally of substantially greater density per unit length than high frequency strings. Heretofore, it has not been possible to equalize the tone quality of the strings while maintaining the other desired qualities of pitch, ease of playing, and the like. The purpose of the present invention is to provide a guitar of such qualities.
It is the surprising finding of the present invention that this problem may be solved by building the guitar with a rigid unsymmetrical mass loading wherein a larger mass is provided to the side of the guitar proximal to strings of high frequency then to the other side. This may be achieved by actually peripherally mass loading a conventional guitar, building a guitar with a crosssection substantially resembling a tear-drop, the narrow portion of the tear-drop being proximal to the strings of lowest frequency, said cross-section being taken in a plane substantially perpendicular to the upper surface of the guitar and perpendicular to the principal longitudinal axis of the neck of the guitar or a combination thereof.
Heretofore, rigid metallic frames have been clamped or rigidly affixed around the entire edge of a guitar in order to enhance the general sound effect. Unsymmetrical placement of such frames however is not known.
Guitars of this design are not known. A guitar which superficially appears to have such a cross-section is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. Des. 263,601 to Klein. The guitar, viewed in plan, has a substantially axe-shaped appearance. Upon close inspection however, it is noted that the two ends of the axe shaped portion appear to be purely decorative. It is further to be noted that that portion of the Klein guitar with the narrowest crosssection appears to be downwardly directed (i.e., proximal to the strings of highest frequency) in the playing position. The sound box appears to be conventional and of rectangular cross-section.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,426,638 to W. E. Smith discloses a guitar having two embodiments. In one embodiment there is provided a substantially conventional guitar body; however, the fret board carrying the strings is mounted on a wedge shaped neck. The purpose and effect of this wedge is to enable the guitar to be played with the strings in a substantially horizontal plane. In another modification of Smith's invention, the neck strings and fret board lie substantially in the same plane as the upper surface of the guitar. However, a wedge is provided to the bottom surface of the otherwise substantially conventional guitar which in turn serves to enable a conventional guitar to be played in a similar manner.
It should be noted that in the second Smith embodiment the sound box is still substantially rectangular in cross section in the conventional manner. Neither Smith nor Klein make any mention of any changes in tone or quality of any of the strings as a result of their novel structures.